The federal trial of Bawer Aksal, 48, of North Bergen, accused of sexually assualting a sleeping woman on a plane, got under way this morning.

The trial of a North Bergen man accused of molesting a woman
while she slept on a cross-country flight continued this morning with more
testimony from the woman who says she was assaulted.

Bawer Aksal, 48, is accused of slipping his hand into the
shorts and shirt of a woman who was sitting next to him on United Airlines
flight 306, which was heading from Phoenix to Newark on Aug. 20, court
officials said.

Defense attorney Robert DeGroot spent several hours this morning questioning the accuser, who took the stand for the second day of the trial.

The woman responded to questions from DeGroot, saying that
she had no recollection of seeing Aksal prior to stepping onto the plane.

DeGroot also questioned the woman about several text messages
that she sent a friend prior to the plane's takeoff from Phoenix.

The woman, who admitted that she was "agitated" in the text
messages, called a flight attendant "a b----" and said she was "unprofessional"
when addressing others on the plane.

Also in the texts, the woman says that Aksal's arm kept
touching hers although she never said anything to him about it.

"His arm and leg kept touching me," said the woman, who
added that she never looked at Aksal, but "if anyone observed (her), they could
tell that I was agitated."

During the incident, the woman said that when she was
sleeping against a window on the flight, she was awakened by Aksal, who had his
hand down her shorts.

"The pain – that's what woke me up," the woman testified
today.

When she woke up, Aksal pulled her closer and whispered "seductively"
into her ear "kiss me," the woman said last week.

Following the incident, the woman said she was "freaking out"
and "wanted to go hide."

"I was completely confused about what the hell was going on,"
she said from the stand today. "I couldn't believe this was happening."

The trial is scheduled to reconvene around 11:45 a.m. following
the adjournment of another, unrelated court matter.